When I’ve eaten the fantastic food (well, most of the time it’s fantastic) out of my canning jars and washed them out, it’s time to store them until I need to can something else. I like to wash the used lid and ring along with the jar and then put the clean lid UPSIDE DOWN on the top of the clean jar and screw it on tight with the ring. The reason I don’t put the lid on right side up is that the gummy stuff sometimes sticks to the rim of the jar and then when I’m ready to use that jar I have to scrape crusty gummy ick off the rim before I can use it. Upside down, I don’t get any of that. I’ll let you just look at the pictures to see why you want to store your jars with lids on. On the left, a jar just stored in a box, on the right a jar stored in a box with the lid on it. The lid keeps the jar nice and clean. Of course you’ll still want to wash it before canning something new in it, but wouldn’t you rather start with a mostly clean jar than one that’s all dirty? Sometimes it’s even better than just dirty ick–you’ll get dead spiders/bugs in them as well–super gross! So it’s worth it to save the used lid and keep it on the jar until you’re ready to use it again.
Keep preparing! Angela
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Mariah says
This may sound really dumb, but is there some way you can look at a lid and tell whether it has been used or not? I always get my used lids and new lids mixed up… I guess I could mark them somehow, but I always leave my sharpie next to my shoes… haha.
But seriously. Does the gummy stuff look different? I can never tell.
AP says
The gummy stuff does look different. There will be a deep jar rim indentation in it if it has been sealed. See my post here for pictures and a lengthy explanation.
tash says
I keep my jars in big tubs. It’s like having one big lid for a bunch of jars. Then when I am canning I bring up two tubs and my canner. One tub has my jars (though sometimes I will just bring up the jars depending on how many I need) the other tub is my canning tub, it has my canning salt, pectin, rings, lids, funnels, and other misc little supplies.